Vital Literary Award

At the meeting held on January 29, 2023. In 2018, the jury of the “Golden Sunflower” Award decided by majority vote that the Vital Award for the best book in the Serbian language in 2022 should be awarded to Vladimir Kecmanović for the novel “When Devils Fly” published by Laguna from Belgrade.

According to the opinion of the jury (Vladimir Gvozden, Dragan Jovanović and Dragan Babić), the books shortlisted for the “Golden Sunflower” Award represent successful achievements within the various possibilities of literary writing. Vladimir Kecmanović’s novel “When Devils Fly” stands out for its boldness to enter the spheres of very complex issues of structures and values of our world in which roles are distributed in advance, and responsibilities, by false but effective necessity, are always or too often transferred to the wrong addresses. Through a very interesting narrative lens in which the main character of the novel does not speak, Vladimir Kecmanović released the “devils”, grotesque-realistic characters of the modern, suffocating world, whose recklessness is just as great as how often they refer to “morality”, i.e. to their own “innocence “, obtained thanks to an uncontrolled greed for money and power.

The “Golden Sunflower” Award for the book of the year, known to the public as Vital’s award, is awarded for the twenty-sixth time, and we remind you that among the previous winners are Ivan V. Lalić, Rajko Petrov Nogo, Radoslav Petković, Milovan Danojlić, David Alabahari, Dragoslav Mihailović , Vladimir Tasić, Goran Petrović, Slobodan Vladušić, Uglješa Šajtinac, Drago Kekanović, Svetlana Slapšak, Tanja Stupar Trifunović, Enes Halilović and Dragan Velikić. Last year’s winner was Milica Vučković for her novel The Death of Athletic Injuries.